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9:46 a.m. - 2011-12-02
I used to be a blogger.

It's been a season in Hell. I never knew things could go so bad and hurt so much without anyone dying. And since I couldn't stand to talk about all the crap I've been quiet. Not much has really improved, it just feels like it's time I should get on with my usual stuff, and my usual stuff includes blogging. Suffice it to say no one is maimed, divorcing or has a drug habit. My desktop is DOA once again, but I still have Lappy. Wolf is still on the B honor roll and my husband is still glad to see me when he gets home from work. Good enough. Guess that's good enough.

I've been doing a lot of cooking. I agree with Julie Powell's view that no matter how bad a day you've had fixing something wonderful to eat is a blessing. I'm grateful my emotions don't transfer to my food as Tita's did in 'Like Water For Chocolate'. Though I will admit to chopping a lot of onions to disguise my tears. And pounding cutlets with my meat hammer is theraputic, even though it scares the dog.

The dog whose coat has finally grown back in thick and lush as ever. Took long enough. Lesson learned. No scalping the dog.

Wolf is still growing like bamboo. 5'8" as of yesterday. A whopping 118lbs too. While not squawky ala Peter Brady, Wolf's breaking voice has gone raspy and unreliable. We don't twit him about it, Lord knows puberty is difficult enough. I remember well when my bod went all haywire like that and my poor kid doesn't need any razzing over stuff he has no control over.

My own bod is hanging tough. The weight is still falling off me despite the insane meals. Beef stroganoff, sauerbraten, ziti bolognese to name a few, and my sleep is for shit, but my balance is still good and my hands don't shake. And miracle of miracles...I seem to have stopped menstruating. Maybe not officially forever yet, but the cyclic nightmare seems to be waning. Amazing how my coping skills have improved now that I'm not being jerked around so harshly by my hormones. Don't think I'll ever be a peaceful Zen mistress sort of woman, but I'm not yelling at strangers at Shoprite anymore either. Cool beans. Tell you what, after 37 years of this crap I am more than ready to hang up my Pamprin and Kotex forever. Bring on the beard and the barrel body, I can hack it. I can hack anything now that I'm not my ovaries' bitch anymore.

I also know that having gone through the horror show myself and almost sailing clear over the cliff's edge I will forever tread lightly and extend all kinds of patience and forgiveness to women in their 40s. I am trying all the time to be a kinder person anyhow, but those troopers in the estrogen trenches get extra leeway from me. Always. What a brutal business.

Speaking of brutal, I read Alison Angrim's Confessions of a Prairie Bitch a while back and can't talk it up enough. If I'd only known what the girl who played Nellie Oleson was going through. Jesus God in Heaven. The Girl We Loved To Hate turns out to be a soul sister. Cried and laughed through the whole book. And at this late date I came away with something important, something I finally get- No matter what you do, no matter how accommodating, no amount of people pleasing will ever buy you universal acceptance. Some people are going to hate you and be shitty to you no matter what. And that it's survivable.

Being scorned, mocked, deliberately misunderstood, it doesn't kill you. Feels like it should sometimes, especially when it's your own child who's determined to paint you as a villain and a creep, but being hated doesn't, won't, can't kill you.

Thanks, Alison. I needed that.

I want to apologise again to those who've had their own stuff going on and haven't heard from me. I simply did NOT have the energy to give. It's been so, so, so tough. I know I've been a lousy friend these last few months. It sucks and I'm sorry. What little juice I've had went to my guys. The all-encompassing fuckery has been astounding. The constant and continuous breakdowns of machinery and house and pets and electronics and money and health and extended family bullshit and cars and appliances and the mega-mega-ultra crap from the ex-husband, it's taken a humongus toll on me. And rightly so any teeny bit I had left was for Mick and Wolf. I've had to draw in my horns and cope and cope and cope and cope. No guarantees I will be a better and more constant friend anytime soon. Sorry.